Life is Writable

Dessen's still got it! Couldn't put it down.

I first read this book for summer reading in High School. I believe I was sixteen. I have always been a huge fan of Sarah Dessen because her stories are fun, romantic and easy to read. Sometimes I consider her books to be guilty pleasures, but Dreamland is as far away from a guilty pleasure as you can get. This is probably her most underrated book. It's not as popular as The Truth About Forever or This Lullaby and I can't really figure out why. This book is good and I guess the years that passed since my first read made me forget. I highly recommend this to those who enjoy YA books with serious topics. I applaud Sarah Dessen for her work on this book and I definitely think it should be read on a different level than some of her others.

Number the Stars was my favorite book as a kid. I read it about five times.. this was probably my sixth. Great book.

This book was FRUSTRATING. I can't figure out if I want to give three stars or two, because I am just SO angry with how this book ended. I may have to let this one resonate for a while before I decide how I really felt about it.

I feel like reading this book is the equivalent of jumping off a cliff after finishing and obsessing over Pretties.

I'm frustrated.

WHY DID ZANE DIE?! The most interesting character just fizzled out of existence! WHAT THE HELL WESTERFELD!

Pretties was by far the best book of the series. The plot of this book was the most intriguing and exciting to read. I was worried after finishing Uglies because I was very unsure about how I felt after reading, but Tally really grew into a likable character and I cared about her more in this book. I also loved Zane, he's the most interesting character Westerfeld has introduced in the series. I was shocked to find that Tally had a new love interest after David. I expected to see a lot more of him in this book, but he was absent for the majority of it. And, I found myself happy about this. I liked David for the most part, but I found his relationship with Tally sort of forced. It wasn't as believable as her relationship with Zane, which came about more organically. I was very disappointed with Westerfeld's decision with Zane in Specials, though. It was a waste of a great character and I will forever hold a grudge!

I enjoyed this book much more than the other two, and I wish Uglies and Specials were just as good. However, Westerfeld missed out on the opportunity to make a good trilogy great.

**Minor spoilers**

I decided to wait until I was finished with the trilogy to write my review for this book, and, after a few painful hours of getting through Specials, I am finally done! Overall, I liked the series. I didn't love it, but I liked it. I think the reason I didn't love it was because it didn't actually feel like a trilogy. The books all went together and the plot moved forward with each book, but I felt like the story jumped around too much. Or, rather, Tally jumped around too much. I went through various stages of loving the character and absolutely hating her (mainly in the beginning of Uglies and all throughout Specials). I've never read a series where the character changed this much. Obviously, that is kind of the point of the books. Tally lives in a very controlled society and her mind has been altered many times, but this made it hard to stick with her and really connect. In the end, I LOVED Pretties, Uglies wasn't great at first, but got better, and Specials was incredibly frustrating.

After reading the entire series, I realized why I had such a problem with Uglies in the first half of the book. I thought maybe it had to do with the writing, or that the characters weren't very believable, but then I came to the conclusion that Westerfeld may have written the book like this on purpose. I could be way off, but the way I saw it was that the reader was meant to dislike Tally at first in order to hate the city and the Specials even more when we learned what was going on. Truthfully, I didn't really like Tally until Pretties. I couldn't stand her personality and how her mind worked, but of course, it wasn't her fault that she was stuck in a superficial mindset. When I was finished, I could appreciate her character more and I grew to love her in Pretties. Of course, everything was ruined by the time we got to Specials. SO MUCH FRUSTRATION.

All in all, this series was fun. I definitely wouldn't call it a favorite, but I would recommend to those who are into this type of story.

The Fault in Our Stars is way overhyped which ultimately ruined this book for me. Don't get me wrong, it's a great book, but after reading An Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns (which are my two favorites by Green), I was expecting my mind to be blown. But, it wasn't. I really enjoyed the story, but I wanted more out of it than I got. After seeing "This book is the best I've ever read" and "Green's best book yet" time and time again on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I really thought it would blow his other books out of the water and then some. But, it didn't.

The one thing that gets me with Green's writing is his characters. After Hassan, Lindsay, Colin, Radar and Lacey, I expected the characters in TFIOS to be on par. I loved Hazel, but Augustas and Isaac weren't my favorites. I don't know what it is, but they just didn't reach me like some of the others have.

However, this is a beautifully written book and a refreshing take on the tragedy of terminal cancer. I love books that force you to feel emotions, because I think it's important to feel happy and sad and scared and angry often. Even if it's about fictional characters. I do strongly recommend this book, I just wish it wasn't as talked about when I first read it. Maybe I would have liked it more under different circumstances. I still say AAOK and PT are much better.

I first read this book when I was 13 (I am now 20) and it has always stuck with me despite not always remembering everything that happened. I read it again in February of this year, and I enjoyed it even more than the first reading because I understood it more. This book is mind-blowing. I've never read a book where everything is turned completely upside down in just the last few pages in the book. At least not to this extent. Instant favorite. I strongly recommend this book.

The reason I gave this book three stars, when it could easily deserve four, is because of the characters. I have a real issue with Green's characterization in this novel, which I find shocking because his characters in his other books are amazing and so relatable. I didn't believe these people. I couldn't relate to Pudge, The Colonel and Alaska because they didn't seem like real people to me. This was frustrating, especially after reading An Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns. The only character I truly liked was Takumi, but I wish I could have enjoyed the others more.

Overall, this book is amazingly written. The ending was perfect. I remembering describing the feeling i got as a "brain orgasm" and I stick by it! I recommend this book to fans of smart YA, but I would recommend AAOK and PT way before Looking for Alaska.